[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/06\/20\/grocery-shopping-trends-digital-natives\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/06\/20\/grocery-shopping-trends-digital-natives\/","headline":"Dear Grocer: Meet my teenage son, and the digital natives just like him","name":"Dear Grocer: Meet my teenage son, and the digital natives just like him","description":"Shopping online is second nature to digital natives, and grocery retailers need to adapt to catch up with their expectations.","datePublished":"2016-06-20","dateModified":"2022-04-29","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/theresa-garrett\/#Person","name":"Theresa Garrett","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/theresa-garrett\/","identifier":148,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/df3116652f9694104e724fafce87bfca998f931fed48d23c493aa9d17d0ff4bb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/df3116652f9694104e724fafce87bfca998f931fed48d23c493aa9d17d0ff4bb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Future of Commerce","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","width":172,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/thumbnail-6c513d2acef246d3820015817da0eee3-4.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/thumbnail-6c513d2acef246d3820015817da0eee3-4.jpeg","height":375,"width":1220},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/06\/20\/grocery-shopping-trends-digital-natives\/","about":[{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/commerce-general\/","name":"Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q26643"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/","name":"Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q26643"]},"CPG",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/customer-experience\/customer-experience-general\/","name":"Customer Experience","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Customer_experience","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q984142"]},"Direct to consumer: D2C",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/e-commerce-solution\/e-commerce-general\/","name":"E-Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/E-commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q484847"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/e-commerce\/","name":"E-Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/E-commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q484847"]},"Future of Grocery Retail",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/industries\/","name":"Industries","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Industry","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q2976602"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/e-commerce-solution\/m-commerce-mobile-commerce\/","name":"M-commerce: Mobile commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mobile_commerce"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/omnichannel-commerce\/","name":"Omnichannel Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Omnichannel"]},"Retail Trends, Data, News"],"wordCount":999,"keywords":["BOPIS","Commerce Trends","Digital Natives","E-commerce","Generation Z","Grocery","Grocery Retail","Grocery Trends","Millennials","Retail Trends"],"articleBody":"I was recently traveling with my son, Spencer, in North Carolina. On the way to the airport for our flight home to Boston, I asked him if he wanted to stop by a grocery store to stock up on Moon Pies, a southern U.S. delicacy which he loves, but are hard to find in the north.Spencer\u2019s answer: Nope.Me:\u00a0Why not? None of the stores at home carry them.Spencer: That doesn\u2019t matter. I can buy them online anytime. And when I order them, I can also buy other stuff you can\u2019t get at our local grocery stores.Me: But, if we bought Moon Pies here today, you wouldn’t need to take the time to search for them online.Spencer:\u00a0It takes me a total of 30 seconds to get them online. Why would we drive all the way to a grocery store to hunt for them, stand in line to buy them, stuff them into our roller bags, and then get on an airplane? That\u2019s just crazy, Mom!Welcome to the future of retail grocery, folks.      Shopping in the digital age: A tale of two grocery experiences                You can lose or gain a customer based solely on one online experience. Is yours up to par?      Digital natives: They don’t shop for groceries the way their parents doA few days later, I asked Spencer to pick up a few things on his way home from school \u2013 milk, paper towels, and garbage bags \u2013 and I texted him twice just in case he forgot. He got the items, but they were obscure brands I’d never even seen.Me:\u00a0Why didn\u2019t you get the brands I normally buy?Spencer: I didn\u2019t see them.Me: Where did you buy these things?Spencer: At the gas station.Me: You went grocery shopping at a gas station? Why didn\u2019t you go to the grocery store?Spencer: It\u2019s not convenient.Me:\u00a0It\u2019s just like going to any store \u2013 you park and you walk inside. \u00a0When you went shopping at the gas station, you had to park and get out of the car there, didn\u2019t you?Spencer:\u00a0Yeah, but you really have to commit yourself to go to a grocery store.Me:\u00a0How is going to a grocery store related to making a commitment? I asked you to buy a few groceries \u2013 not make a major life decision.Spencer:\u00a0If I want to get a Gatorade, and I go to a grocery store, I have to buy them in packs of 32. What am I going to do with 32 Gatorades? That is a major commitment, and it\u2019s not convenient.I\u2019m sure he was exaggerating about having to buy 32 at a time, but I wanted to pursue the discussion, so I continued.Me:\u00a0What could a grocery store do to make shopping more convenient for you?Spencer: They could put all the \u201cgrab and go\u201d stuff up front \u2013 so it\u2019s all right there when you walk in. Create a convenience store within a larger store. And, they should have a drive-through window. (Hello, BOPIS)Me:\u00a0A drive-through in a grocery store? Dream on!Spencer:\u00a0 Why not? I\u2019d buy their \u201cto go\u201d foods just about every day if I could text them my order and payment, and then just pull up to the window and get my order. I\u2019d even be willing to walk a few feet inside the door, as long as I could just grab my bag and go. I love their chicken wings, but I\u2019m not going to walk all the way to the back of the store and stand in a line to get them, and then go up front and wait in another line to pay for them.Me: But in real life, you can\u2019t just text your meal order in, pay online with your phone, and then walk up and have your food waiting for you.Spencer:\u00a0Actually, Mom, you can. That\u2019s how I buy most of my food.I suppose you could blame me for Spencer\u2019s attitude. I did, after all, start him out by buying his baby food online.      Grocery technology trends retailers need to jump on                Find out how AI, analytics, and other tech solutions can help grocery retailers improve customer experience and boost the bottom line.      So, dear Grocer, here is your dilemma: Your future customers have clear digital expectations \u2013 are you ready to meet them?\u00a0Spencer and his peers are still young, and maybe their views will change. But, what if they don\u2019t?What if this first generation of digital natives who grew up with everything online continue to expect \u2013 and demand \u2013 this kind of customer experience and extreme convenience all the time?Or, what if their evolving views on shopping could actually work in your favor?Digital natives \u2013 in my experience \u2013 do not seem to have rigid perceptions about what a grocery store can or cannot sell. If you put something they want in a digital catalog, and make it convenient for them to buy on a smartphone, I imagine you could probably sell them just about anything. And you need to think of something, because your current engagement models won’t work in the future.Chances are you have 17-, 18-, and 19-year-olds working in your stores as shelf stockers, baggers, and maybe cashiers. What a great place to start \u2013 with someone who probably lives in your community, knows about your business and customers, and can give you some creative ideas on what she or he and their friends are willing to buy \u2013 and HOW they want to buy it.And who knows, maybe some of the ideas your younger employees inspire you to try could also make grocery shopping an amazing experience for all of us.Yours truly,Theresa  The future of grocery has unfamiliar aisles for a lot of retailers.Get the data + strategies you need to stay competitive\u00a0HERE."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2016","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"06","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/\/06\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"20","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/\/06\/\/20\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Dear Grocer: Meet my teenage son, and the digital natives just like him","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/06\/20\/grocery-shopping-trends-digital-natives\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]